NFL ATTORNEY PUTS EAGLETON ON THE SPOT OF SECRET FEE

The Rams "kept secret" from the other 29 NFL teams an
agreement with the St. Louis Convention and Visitors
Commission (CVC) that the CVC "would pay up to" $7.5M of
fees to relocate from CA, according to William Lhotka of the
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH. Former U.S. Senator Thomas
Eagleton, who lead the civic group FANS, Inc., said that the
deal was "contained in a document separate" from documents
that the Rams turned over to the NFL in its application to
move in '95. Lhotka reports the "admissions cast a cloud
over the" CVC's $130M antitrust suit, which "contends that
the NFL acted arbitrarily, and perhaps unethically, in
forcing the city to pay" $20M of a $29M Rams relocation fee.
Eagleton confirmed that the fee was withheld from the NFL,
since offering information "about the fee agreement would
have been an invitation to the league to extract as much as
it could." In further questioning from NFL attorney Frank
Rothman, Eagleton said the league never discouraged FANS,
Inc. from talking to any NFL team or interfered with its
talks with the Rams. CVC attorney Alan Popkin has "alleged
that the NFL, through its guidelines, rules and antitrust
practices, had discouraged" teams from bidding on St. Louis
and its new stadium which "forced" the city to give the Rams
a "deal far superior than the team would have gotten in an
open-market atmosphere" (POST-DISPATCH, 10/10).